It has become conventional in the software industry for software vendors to release updates or patches to their products on a regular basis. An application provider, for example, can produce a major release or version of a software application, after which the user community can install and use the application. Over time, bug reports and other feedback can be received by the vendor, followed by engineering fixes to reported bugs. Often, the software vendor will make a downloadable patch or software update available to users of the main or most recent version, to remedy the known bug or stability issues.
The process of user installation and verification of proper operation continues with each software patch made available by a software vendor. After a given patch is distributed, it may be discovered, for example, that the patched version of the software fails to operate properly on certain hardware, or that the patched version causes other specific applications to crash. After a period of time, a flawed patch may be followed by a follow-on patch designed to correct the instabilities of the preceding patch. That succeeding patch itself is then distributed and bug reports can accumulate on that patch version as well. As the generations of patches are distributed, some users who discover incompatibilities with their software or hardware configuration may choose to revert to a prior software version to restore stable operation.
Using current download options, a user who wishes to select and download a patch to a software application has no way to be apprised of the various versions of the patched software available to them, nor the nature of reported bugs or collective patch selections and results achieved by the community of other users of the software application. It may be desirable to provide methods and systems to manage software patches that track, display and distribute patches with a comprehensive patch history visible to the user, to permit more selective patch updating that is better attuned to user needs.